3D Printing, sometimes referred to as ‘additive manufacturing,’ is used to construct a physical model of a digital 3D design or a CAD model. It refers to a class of rapid prototyping systems - a group of techniques to quickly mock a digital design to a physical model. 3D printing is widely used in every other industry and is gaining popularity for its affordable and realistic solutions in less time.
For instance, consider an automobile company that manufactures tires for another company. It has to come up with prototype design and present it to the client. With 3D printing, the process is so much easier and quick in contrast with other prototyping methods like SLA and SLS. Companies can cut downtime on product design with the use of a 3D printer. Modern 3D printers use FFF/FDM technology since it’s cost-effective and suitable for simple prototyping.
What Is Iterative Product Design Lifecycle and How Is It Important?
Iterative design is a process of arriving at the desired prototype after a lot of phases of tweaking, adjustments, and improvisations at every step. For instance, a software product or an application undergoes many improvisations and updates after its initial release in the market. These products follow-up with regular updates and new features; they also eliminate bugs and problems in various stages.
The entire process divides into four stages that make up the design lifecycle. Typically, it consists of;
- Research/Ideation
- Prototype
- Build
- Analyse.
Iterative product design is important in 3D printing because;
- You can identify flaws in the prototype early and rectify them to avoid significant repercussions in the future.
- Through an iterative design approach, you can get valuable feedback from users and improvise the product further.
- Implementing interactive design solutions increases the usability of your product.
- Overall, it's a cost-effective and efficient methodology of product design.
How Can 3D Printing Speed up This Product Design?
3D printing can speed up the product design process in the following ways;
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Fast and flexible design: 3D printing helps overcome long delays in the design phase by its rapid prototyping feature. Very intricate designs can be transformed from a digital model to a physical model one in half a day compared to other methods, which can take days.
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Design iterations are faster - As we saw in the previous section, the iterative design approach helps you build less faulty products through a series of improvisations. This design approach, which commonly finds its use in 3D printing, works wonders in product design and delivery.
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Early feedback, early flaw detection - When a product completes its first design phase, rigorous testing happens for its usability. With 3D printers, the product is manufactured faster and is available for testing. From the feedback, it can undergo many iterations and adjustments until the desired results are achieved. In this way, we arrive at polished product design.
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In house convenience - Traditionally, many companies outsourced their spare parts production to other companies, which meant a lot of wait time and dependency on another company. And further delay for any improvisations or changes made to the initial model. With 3D printers, any organization can have a 3D printer at their premises, thereby avoiding prototype design delays, and drastically increasing their time to market.
Wrapping Up
3D printing has been around since the ’90s and is slowly becoming popular because of its benefits. In this article, we saw how it could speed up your product design process. 3D printers that use FDM cost from 2000 USD and upwards, which is an affordable investment for an organization since the ROI 3D printers offer are generous.